The Women’s Professional Baseball League is set to kick off its first season at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. The league is scheduled to commence on August 1, following the Women’s Baseball World Cup in Rockford, located approximately three hours north of Springfield, which runs from July 22 to July 26.
The 2026 season of the WPBL will feature four teams: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. San Francisco has the first pick in the upcoming snake-style draft, to be held on Thursday evening, followed by Los Angeles, New York, and Boston. The draft will consist of six rounds, with each team selecting five players per round. Notable players expected to be drafted include former Little League standout Mo’ne Davis, USA Baseball’s Kelsie Whitmore, and Japanese pitcher Ayami Sato.
Robin Roberts Stadium was chosen as the league’s venue for its central location among the founding clubs. Springfield has a historical connection to women’s baseball, having hosted one of the earliest paid women’s games in 1875. The stadium boasts a seating capacity of 5,200 and has recently added an LED videoboard.
The WPBL, co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first female coach for an MLB team (the Oakland Athletics in 2015), marks the return of professional women’s baseball since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League disbanded in 1954, famously depicted in the movie “A League of Their Own.”